THE NEW YORKER called Ladyslipper, which will make the group's record- . " N T I" Ing on acete. ("Don't Be Silent!") available in stores around the country this fall. The group is also touring, and it is planning to mount one of the earliest operas ever written- "The Liberation of R ." d ugglero, compose in 1625 by Francesca Caccini, who was a highly paid musician at the Medici court. "There's all this great stuff in it," Ms. Reigler said. "Peo- ple being turned into plants, Neptune emerg- ing from the sea, a shipwreck, an Inferno scene, in which the enchantress Alcina transforms her- self into a winged monster. There's also an extremely sexy aria that we've recorded-and that would be banned by Jesse Helms if he knew Italian. It's all about the lovely things Alcina is going to do to her captive, Ruggiero, on her island. Caccini also wrote a ballet for horses, which took place while the sets were changed. The audience would get up and rush over to a balcony and look down into a courtyard where the horses were per- forming. I think we may have to skip that in Louisville. The Medicis had a significant disposable income, and we do not." r:::::1 r:=c t::=1 Real Dogs I N the past, the only recourse for a dog who craved fame was Holly- wood. A dog was either a movie dog or a house pet, end of discussion. While a few dogs became celebrities, the vast majority passed through life unknown, leaving behind no more than a handful of memories scattered like bones across back yards and living rooms. Then, in 1990, Chuck Svoboda and Frank Simon, two men working the Southwest border for the United States Customs Service, decided that something had to be done to get some less flashy dogs a little more attention. \ - 29 I c=J 1- r:::::J t L:::::J L::t c:=:J &\AJI GI @?l] Q!][yIPI1D&:$s>TIm (Ço I ../...... . . : . . . . " II . . :: : :' ;- " ?:'.;:;o' ::: I. i ::: : " : :: ...l (-.1r\ 1 .S'\""1 \ : '. (D- ?O : " ::1' (\ t;;' : . :':: _ :ii: · <õ"l .. q --' ""I , \ ::: .: ..:..... ::::: -.-.- \ : :. ;: ..:..,.L ' : : :: : . ;:::: ( : , : >:: . 'c:!:'", .... . '.' '. I." 0 '. . . . . . . . :: : fJr ': : ' \3: f- '''Gl'('{=M'''''''' 'il ;: : ; : : . .. . ... .' .... . ,: : '. .': . , if- .......:... .'. .... .... . . .... . : .... . They discussed the problem with their immediate supervisor, and, as a result, the United States Customs Service issued nine base ball-style trading cards, each picturing a drug-detecting dog and listing the dog's age, breed, seizure record, and most notable achievement. The cards, which are distributed to schoolchildren, show canine agents sniffing tires, standing in pickups, and straining in the glare of the midday Texas sun. Real dogs solving real problems. W e learned all this from Morris Berkowitz, who is a canine-program manager with the Customs Service and is determined to improve the image of the working dog. "These dogs may not play ball," he likes to say, "but they can do a little trick çalled 'stop . , " crIme. Last April, Milk- Bone Dog Bis- cuits, part of a division of Nabisco Foods, took the dog-card concept a step further: it named two dozen canine agents to an honorary All-Star team, issued a second set of cards, celebrating these dogs, and began putting them inside boxes of Milk- Bones. A dog handler named August King, who is partnered with a sixty-pound yellow Labrador retriever, claims that the cards could actually work as deterrents to drug trafficking. "When dealers get a look at the dogs stacked against them, I I . . .o. "'....o. - - . ..... . . M Nk'O'Ç.f . they just might change their plans," he told us. Nabisco executives speak in more general terms. "The cards put us on the side of the good dog and good dogs everywhere," a company spokes- man said. All told, three hundred and forty- seven dogs are employed by the Cus- toms Service, and police America's airports, seaports, and border check- points. It was twenty-four of those dogs that were chosen as All-Stars. Two New York dogs made the squad. "Rufus and Jack-both are legends, but Rufus is an animal I truly respect," Mr. Berkowitz said. Last year, while searching a cargo truck, Rufus, a sad- eyed springer spaniel, uncovered nine hundred pounds of cocaine, and in the course of his career he has found over eighty million dollars' worth of narcotics. "To understand how re- markable that stat is, you should know that Rufus is at least thirteen years old and that most dogs retire at around . " M B k . 1 . d " I ' nIne, r. er OWltz exp alne. t s not that they lose their desire; their bodies just won't do what they once did. The retired dogs spend their days like civilian dogs-lying in front of a TV or running around some yard. But Rufus is unstoppable. He's like Nolan Ryan." In their pictures, the dogs look stern and businesslike-all but Corky. Corky,